Living a day in bedouin style

Friday May 22nd

The group met in the mighty Arad Canyon, nestled in the eastern heart of the Israeli Desert. This canyon’s rugged attractions included, as one would expect from a canyon, a mcdonalds, supermarket, and the coffee shop that served as our starting point for this venture into a special day with the bedouins.

But first, a few notes:

• Shopping malls are called canyons in Israel
• A Bedouin is a person of the desert living a semi-nomadic lifestyle, who’s more widely discussed traits include a strict cap of 4 wives per man and a desert estate that must include several of the following: camels, donkeys, goats, huts that only men may enter, a shitload of sand
• The backyard, however, can include no more than 1 of the following: legitimate toilets, satellite tv, cell phone reception, shelter made of anything other than metal or dried goat skin, non-bedouin people (we had 7 non-bedouins in our group, so none of the other items were found)

The group that left the coffee shop that morning was led by Mike Gross who has known his Bedouin friend Musa for over 40 years. Mike and his daughter Kimberley were on holiday in Israel for the week from London. Mike served many crucial years in the Israeli army as a paratrooper and has an amazingly intimate connection with the land and its people, both of which he has very generously shared with me and other friends in the time that I’ve seen him in Israel over the past couple of months. I’m always funnily introduced as “my son-in-law’s brother”, which, despite its accuracy, feels like too distant a title from someone who has become a great friend.

The drive to the camp through this rugged desert landscape set the scene for a very out-of-this-world experience enjoying a day with a group of Bedouins in their home. Although less glamorous than the fabricated Bedouin camp made for hundreds of tourists less than 1 km away, this humble collection of metal huts and its dwellers was a much more real and rare glance into Bedouin life.

We spent the first couple hours meeting our hosts over some very sweet aromatic tea and shots of bitterstrong coffee. The two older men wore traditional arabic headdresses, while the younger ones were wearing more modern clothes (and one in full on camo gear). We kicked off our sandals, each found a mattress and couple of pillows, and relaxed our bodies and minds to truly absorb this comforting desert home.

While we soaked this all in the shade, a recently butchered sheep was soaking in the heat from an oven built beneath the sand outside. This “zaarp” cooked goat would be our very special treat for the day. The process of removing it from the sand cave was very exciting for us and the bedouin kids, and quite hot for Musa. The meat was presented on open metal dishes, accompanied by very thin pita-style bread, cut fresh vegetables, hummus, and typical Israeli strange flavored sodas. We grabbed chunks of tender lean meat from the chopped up bones and let the taste of all-natural cooking melt down our mouths like butter. It was an amazingly fresh and unique meal.

We spent some time digesting, while some discussed the apparent unfair crackdown of Bedouins by the Israeli government, others kicked back and stared off into the rolling desert hills.

In typical Mike Gross style, a birthday cake complete with fiery sparklers was given to his friend Eran’s wife to close out the wonderful meal. She and Kimberley spent some time speaking with the Bedouin women, who the rest of us didn’t see once because they were in their own secluded huts. Apparently they aren’t treated very well and aren’t too happy about it, an aspect of this culture that isn’t so pretty. All in all, the bedouins were wonderful hosts, as was Mike, and allowed us a glimpse into the unique place they call home. It was a very special day, one that I hope none of us will ever forget.